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“How did [Republicans] not know we were going to get our ass kicked?”

“Everyone thought the election was going to be close. How did [Republicans] not know we were going to get our ass kicked?” lamented Rob Jesmer, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I don’t understand how we didn’t know. That’s the part that’s most puzzling and frustrating and embarrassing.”…

Some answers are easy to implement: Pollsters should fix voter screens, used to weed out of their samples irregular voters who aren’t likely to vote. Including only likely voters often leads to a more Republican-heavy sample. But in an era of fine-tuned turnout machines and get-out-the-vote drives, even those irregular voters are likely to show up. Polling all registered voters, rather than those most likely to make it to the polls, would at least give Republicans an idea of the worst-case scenario.

Pollsters should also control more for age, gender, and race than for party identification. One prominent party pollster pointed to a late survey conducted for Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock that showed him leading Democrat Joe Donnelly by 2 points. That survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, showed that 56 percent of Indiana’s electorate would be over age 55. Exit polls revealed that number to be vastly overstated; only 43 percent of the electorate was over 50…

Democrats “must be looking at us like we’re the biggest f—– morons in the world,” one frustrated Republican said. “That’s what I’d be doing.”

Blowback

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Both political parties are guilty of exaggerating the faults of their opponents to rally their bases to secure more power for themselves, but having watched both sides, Republicans are living in a bubble where everyone that doesn’t vote for them is a moronic parasite feeding off society with the magical ability to vote eight times because they are part of the vast left wing conspiracy run by a Socialist/Marxist/Keynesian named Bill Ayers. Oh, and “Sandra Fluke is a whore” or something.

We made the assumption that the economy was so bad, and that Obama was so antagonistic towards traditional American Values and Exceptionalism, that we could make an unlimited number of mistakes and it wouldn’t matter.

Romney, actually ran a pretty darn good race. REPUBLICANS, embarrassed themselves. They under performed even in solidly red states, where as Romney was easily the single strongest performing Republican nation wide.

Additionally, had the electorate been mostly Caucasian, like it was even twenty years ago, Romney would have won in a landslide, similar to that of Ronald Reagans. Being that the Republican party tends to be most popular among Caucasians, its unsurprising that we were taken off guard. We’re used to fellow Caucasians deciding the outcome of elections, thus we subconsciously use them as a barometer for how well an election is going.

I thought it was pretty obvious that Romney was going to lose. He was the Republican candidate not because people wanted him to be but because he was the last one left after everyone else either withdrew or self-destructed. He then promptly demonstrated his inability to unite the base with the Ron Paul delegate fiasco and if he couldn’t unite the base, what hope was there that he could inspire independents to get behind him? His 47% remark was idiotic. After 4 years of Obama being bashed for his “bitter clingers” remark, how could Romney have believed that 47% remark wasn’t going to come back to haunt him? His big debate win was that Obama didn’t bother to prepare for the debate. His campaign was lackluster and uninspiring. That he did as well as he did is more a tribute to how desperate people are to kick Obama out of office than to his quality as a candidate.

Rip Ford on November 13, 2012 at 12:49 PM

Romney did his job. He won Independents. It was a statement of fact to his supporters. Should be have taken precautions to avoid being surreptitiously taped? Did you vote?

It’ll take longer than that, and even so, it won’t help the fact that the message of the GOP is directed at a shrinking group of people. GOTV still matters, but you are investing in diminishing returns while democrats are maximizing them.

ernesto on November 13, 2012 at 1:01 PM

Some folks have said it’ll take longer, but we’re not building the space shuttle. All of these tools are things that any good business uses. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we just need to use the wheel.

Part of what we’d gain with the research and behavioral science would be finding a way to reach out to all of America. Obama did a great job of crafting messages to different groups. Conservatives can do that, too. We just don’t.

The GOP needs to learn that being right doesn’t help unless you can convince people that you’re right. For example, the GOP was on the right side of the Civil Rights movement. But the party of Bull Conner gets the black vote every election. We could reverse that, with the right message.

Romney did his job. He won Independents. It was a statement of fact to his supporters. Should be have taken precautions to avoid being surreptitiously taped? Did you vote?

Basilsbest on November 13, 2012 at 1:15 PM

There’s always a video camera around. Ask George Allen. Romney didn’t do his job. He ran a campaign that mismanaged the GOTV effort. He didn’t attack his opponent. He didn’t even have a consistent positive message.

They’re too dimwitted to understand and comprehend that we would not get the same courtesy on leftist sites.

kim roy on November 13, 2012 at 1:17 PM

They don’t consider the vitriol on the left to be as bad because what the lefties are saying is “correct” after all. It’s the same reason why all the war on terror tools they fomerly protested are fine now that Obama is at the helm because he is an honorable man who would never abuse them (unlike Bu$hitler)

There’s always a video camera around. Ask George Allen. Romney didn’t do his job. He ran a campaign that mismanaged the GOTV effort. He didn’t attack his opponent. He didn’t even have a consistent positive message.

hawksruleva on November 13, 2012 at 1:19 PM

Okay, that last bit is bumpkiss. Romney consistently ran on turning the economy around and fixing problems. That’s pretty darn positive, and he was pretty darn consistent about it. Heck, even a couple democratic pundits this week admitted that Romney ran a far more positive campaign than his opponent.

As for GOTV, yes, the campaign could have done a better job. However, Roughly a dozen organizations claimed to have been focusing on Republican GOTV this year, and they all performed miserably.

Republican GOTV machines have HISTORICALLY been poor. The issue has been that Republicans are simply more likely to spend money on advertising and call it GOTV. That was the problem this year, hundreds of millions was spent on advertisements, very little was spent on busing people out to polling places.

Hopefully, we’ll have finally learned our lesson this time, but laying ALL that at the Romney campaigns feet is a little unfair.

How did they not know? The Romney campaign thought turnout would be higher amongst whites than it was. They thought turnout would be higher amongst seniors than it was. They thought turnout amongst young voters and minorities wouldn’t match 2008. It did.

Now the question the GOP has to answer is why. Was it their message? Was it the candidate? Did they just assume the base would show up without the campaign convincing them to go to the polls? Is the brand still too damaged nationally 4 years removed from Bush leaving office? They need to figure all of this out.

The problem is too many in the party seem way more interested in finding short-term solutions all of which involve p-ssing on the base and abandoning their conservative principles(i.e. amnesty). If they think that’s the pathway back to power, they’re in for a rude awakening not in 2016, but in 2014 when they lose the House.

Part of what we’d gain with the research and behavioral science would be finding a way to reach out to all of America. Obama did a great job of crafting messages to different groups. Conservatives can do that, too. We just don’t.

The GOP needs to learn that being right doesn’t help unless you can convince people that you’re right. For example, the GOP was on the right side of the Civil Rights movement. But the party of Bull Conner gets the black vote every election. We could reverse that, with the right message.

The Romney campaign was in lala land, and we were completely decieved by the genuine optimism coming from them. People were skeptical pre-debate, but after that first debate, even the Romney critics were largely persuaded by the optimism.

This stuff about “superfast demographics changes” is nonsense dreamed up by the GOP consultants and leadership to excuse their spectacular failure.

Both political parties are guilty of exaggerating the faults of their opponents to rally their bases to secure more power for themselves, but having watched both sides, Republicans are living in a bubble where everyone that doesn’t vote for them is a moronic parasite feeding off society with the magical ability to vote eight times because they are part of the vast left wing conspiracy run by a Socialist/Marxist/Keynesian named Bill Ayers. Oh, and “Sandra Fluke is a whore” or something.

People keep talking about the base, which they say is socons, and that they are this huge number of people.

Socons can’t even get a socon a victory in the primaries, except in a couple of backwards states. Worrying about pacifying the ever-shrinking number of ignorant ban-happy socons is the last thing Republicans should be concerned with.

If you want to live in 1950, that’s up to you. Your business. You can’t make everyone do it, though.

But what message would do that? How do you sell the message that the poor should receive worse health care and education to the black population?

ernesto on November 13, 2012 at 2:14 PM

You are obtuse. He was using ONE example. It was how your party is able to claim to be the party of “womyn” and yet have a murderer of women Ted Kennedy in the Senate for decades. And you sell the same message to the poor; that you do to the middle class. Be reliant on your own two people, learn to find opportunity and when the economy is booming i.e., people are getting rich- then there will be jobs for your families. No one is denied healthcare in this country and as far as bad education-vouchers to better schools would help the black population immensely. Washington DC, mostly black school system is the most overfunded school system there is and the worst. Keep focusing on your daddy government and your shiny things and let the grown ups do the work.

Because you had a**holes like Dick Morris who knowingly lied to you and you drank the koolaid down like lemmings to the slaughter:

“Sean, I hope people aren’t mad at me about it… I spoke about what I believed and I think that there was a period of time when the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic, nobody thought there was a chance of victory and I felt that it was my duty at that point to go out and say what I said. And at the time that I said it, I believe I was right.”

I found this private effort at Wikipedia, but my original sources from the MSM have all been removed. They don;t want you to see this map, but just like the Bush Red State, Blue State Map, every Conservative should keep this map up and center.

As soon as the counting settles down, Tee shirts, bumper stickers, and badges are needed displaying the final precinct map

The Electoral college map, state by state makes the Obama win look like a bigger chunk of the USA, but even then, they both got about half the states

This precinct break down is damning to Obama, and to get there they had to be as crooked as Hades.

They can falsify the news, hide evidence, and pass unjust laws, but they cannot eliminate this huge population that is not on their side

The DEMs lost more votes than the GOP lost, but the GOP missed one big group. Had they been able to win that group – the missing finincially dispirited and totally disenchanted rural blue collar, they would have also dug into the lost obama voters. There were 8 million lost Obama votes, and they were not all super left wing ideologues

The fact this map jas been rapidly hidden from view should tell you they are afriad you will understand how precarious is their win

But they aren’t failures to Democrats because they use the welfare state as a way to gather votes.

Joseph Russo III on November 13, 2012 at 2:31 PM

You forgot Detroit.. etc.. Your forgot how many minorities in Obama’s neck of the woods are getting shot daily. And lets not forget blue states like Illinois and California which are going under due to pensions while red states economies are growing because they are business i.e., rich friendly.

You forgot Detroit.. etc.. Your forgot how many minorities in Obama’s neck of the woods are getting shot daily. And lets not forget blue states like Illinois and California which are going under due to pensions while red states economies are growing because they are business i.e., rich friendly.

Democrats spent the campaign running around claiming that Romney was going to outlaw birth control so…

Joseph Russo III on November 13, 2012 at 2:57 PM
———

Ohhh look, another clueless person who doesn’t know the facts.

From Romney’s own website:

“Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade — a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.”

Democrats spent the campaign running around claiming that Romney was going to outlaw birth control so…

Joseph Russo III on November 13, 2012 at 2:57 PM
———
Wrong fact.

Here you go

Romney “supports a constitutional amendment stating that life begins at conception, and because some forms of birth control – such as intra-uterine devices and morning-after pills – prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, he believes they cause early miscarriages and should be banned.”